


Too Much Blood in my Caffeine Stream

by ladivvinatravestia



Series: If You Need to Fall Apart [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Halloween, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, author is a crazy cat person, no beta we die like men, very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 13:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20908229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladivvinatravestia/pseuds/ladivvinatravestia
Summary: Steve lost most of his day to a migraine.





	Too Much Blood in my Caffeine Stream

**Author's Note:**

> For Spooktober prompts "full moon" and "trick or treating". The official Whumptober prompt for the day was "delirium", which I was all set to write, until I lost most of my day to a migraine.

After dozing fitfully all day, Steve has finally reached the point where it hurts his back more to stay in bed than it hurts his head to get out of it. He shuffles into the living room, clutching his blanket around him. It's almost dark out. Fuck. Another fucking day, completely lost. James looks up from his book.

"Ugh," says Steve, and sits down on the opposite end of the couch. He sinks carefully back into the cushions. If he moves his head slowly enough, he feels slightly less nauseous. Alpine, who is normally a one-man cat, pointedly abandons James' lap to curl up on Steve's nest of blankets instead.

"Alleviate migraine pain by dimming the lights, applying hot or cold compresses, and drinking a caffeinated beverage," says James. He has clearly been doing his internet research while Steve has been trying to sleep.

"Yep," agrees Steve, his eyes closed. "For all the good it'll do. I'm also hyper-sensitive to smells when I'm having one."

James gets up off the couch and turns the lights off. The only illumination in the room now comes from the street lights outside the window and the full moon. Steve's not bothering with his glasses right now, so it's kind of a diffuse round blur in the darkening sky.

"Hot or cold compress?" asks James.

"Uh," says Steve. He never bothers with this part because it's too much to try and prepare one when it already hurts to move. "Hot," he decides. That will feel nice on his neck, and if it doesn't work on the migraine, he can always use it on his lower back.

James rustles about in the kitchen area for a few minutes, then comes back with a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel. Steve tilts his head forward, slowly, and James sets the hot water bottle on the back of his neck.

"Caffeinated beverage," James says.

"Yeah, the usual," says Steve.

James looks momentarily surprised, but there's a reason Steve always orders the Venti Soy Latte with five shots of espresso, and it's not because he particularly loves the taste.

James steps out to get the coffee, and Steve unlocks his phone, holding it close to his face and squinting at it so he won't have to get his glasses from the other room. Alpine looks up from his slumber and bats at it.

"Yeah buddy, I know, it's not doing me any favors right now," Steve tells him, and Alpine meows his disapproval.

There are hundreds of social media notifications for Steve to get through. He frowns. Some of them are just memes and pictures of friends' lunches and Hallowe'en costumes, but many of them are sociopolitical discussions he thinks it's important to say his piece on.

He opens up one thread, about whether the Avengers should be able to operate without military oversight. it's an issue that has started to come up more and more in online discussions, and one he feels strongly about, but he can't summon enough brain power to concentrate through the migraine long enough to write a coherent response.

Outside the glowing rectangle of his phone screen, grayscale fractal patterns shimmer and shift in the darkened room. Steve tosses his phone aside in frustration and tilts his head back against the couch. The hot water bottle is relieving some of the tension in his neck, but it's also exacerbating his visual aura symptoms. He shuts his eyes, but the fractal patterns follow him, turning orange and blue beneath his eyelids. Alpine stands up and stretches, then repositions himself two steps closer to Steve's face, right on top of his chest. He turns around slowly, brushing his tail in Steve's face, then settles down into a ball and immediately goes to sleep again, purring loudly. It's a relaxing sound, and Steve must drift off briefly, because the next thing he knows, James is letting himself back into the apartment, drink tray in one hand and a bag of corner store candies in the other.

"What's that for?" Steve asks of the candies.

James hands him his drink and he wraps his hands around it gratefully before pressing it to his temple. The heat grants him some momentary pain relief. Alpine, offended at having been supplanted by a cup of coffee, stalks off, his tail in the air.

"It's Hallowe'en," says James.

"Oh, right," says Steve. He decides not to tell James that, living on the sixth floor of an entry-controlled, walk-up apartment, he never gets trick-or-treaters. James has been very excited, in his own understated way, about the incoming celebration, selecting garlands of ghosts and spiders to hang around the living room and buying a little purple bow tie that he has yet to successfully coerce Alpine into wearing long enough to pose for a picture.

"I thought you already bought some candy," says Steve, now pressing his drink to the middle of his forehead.

There's a guilty pause, which means James has eaten all of the previously-stockpiled candy. Steve smiles.

"Okay," he says.

James empties the candies into the jack-o-lantern-shaped pail by the door and then comes to sit on the couch, being careful not to jostle Steve. Alpine reappears and worms his way into James' lap, voicing his newest complaints.

"Alpine, sshh," James says, putting his finger to his lips.

"I'm actually not sound-sensitive," says Steve. "You don't have to worry about being quiet."

"Okay," says James, and picks his book back up. "Should I read to you?"

"Depends," says Steve, "what are you reading?" They've read to each other before, but they have very dissimilar reading tastes. Steve likes well-written high fantasy, and James prefers pulpy sci-fi and horror.

"House of Fear," says James. Well, whatever that is, it's probably appropriate reading material for a darkened apartment on a moonlit Hallowe'en night.

"Sounds good," says Steve.

"You sure?" asks James. "It's pretty scary."

"I've got you to protect me," says Steve. He takes another sip of his coffee. Is the pain and nausea starting to subside? Maybe.

"What if I get eaten by ghosts?" says James.

"Then Alpine will protect me," says Steve.

Alpine expresses his opinion of that plan. It doesn't sound like he approves.

"Okay," says James, and starts reading. House of Fear turns out to be a collection of fantastically creepy short stories, and once James is reading out someone else's words instead of stringing together his own, he can be very expressive.

They make it through two of the stories, pausing to discuss after each one, and are partway through a story about a cursed doll that's much scarier than it sounds when there is a loud knocking at the apartment door.

Steve jumps, Alpine goes streaking off to hide under the bed, and even James does his version of being startled, which is to sit up very straight and produce a knife from somewhere. There's a tense moment of silence. Then, a chorus of children's voices sounds through the door:

"Trick or treat!"

**Author's Note:**

> "House of Fear" really exists, and it is an excellent collection of short haunted house stories. The one that has stuck with me the longest is "Pied-a-terre" by Stephen Volk, wherein a friendly ghost helps a woman escape an abusive relationship. I like to think that reading it would help James contextualize some of the treatment he received from HYDRA.
> 
> Migraines are so much more than "just a headache" and over-the-counter pain medications tend to be only moderately successful at treating them. There are prescription medications you can get, but at $600/month for preventive injections plus between $10-$20/pill for treating an actual attack, Steve can't afford them on his freelance income.
> 
> Visit me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ladivvinatravestia), where my asks box is always open to prompts.


End file.
